Matthew ErvinSensors and Electron Devices DirectorateU.S. Army Research Laboratory

Electrical energy storage and handling is a critical and ubiquitous need of the Army. Supercapacitors have great potential to address some of these needs as they have more power density and longer lives than batteries and have higher energy density than other types of capacitors. To meet Army specific applications, ARL is investigating graphene and other nanomaterials for increasing supercapacitor performance and enabling new form factors. In collaboration with Stevens Institute of Technology, ARL has demonstrated inkjet printing of graphene supercapacitor electrodes onto flexible substrates for making flexible supercapacitors. Issues concerning the individual components of a printed, flexible supercapitor will be discussed. These flexible supercapacitors will enable printed, flexible munitions initiation circuits being developed by ARDEC. In another development, ARL has used unique high-speed supercapacitors developed by an ARL SBIR performer, JME Inc., to demonstrate energy storage from a munitions energy harvesting system under development by ARDEC. These supercapacitors operate at four orders of magnitude higher frequency than traditional supercapacitors making them viable for energy harvesting applications and for replacing electrolytic capacitors in a ~10x smaller form factor making them attractive for applications such as munitions which have severe space constraints.

About the SpeakerDr. Ervin received his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1992 at the Pennsylvania State University. In over 15 years at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, he has been involved with materials characterization using SIMS/SEM/FIB/etc, as well as researching Ohmic contacts to SiC, electron beam induced deposition, CNT FET-based chemical sensors, and most recently graphene-based supercapacitors.